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when the state doesn't serve you, but you serve the state is time to change http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_2nd.html

You have confused the "Articles of Confederation" of 1771 with the "Constitution". The Constitution doesn't even contain the word "perpetual".

Amendment 10 says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." and, since the right to prevent secession is not enumerated as a power delegated to the United States by the Constitution (and in fact, was explicitly retained by the constitutions of several states), the right of the South to secede is perfectly legitimate.

By the way, the people also have the right to keep and bear any arms they like as the power to restrict that right was not delegated to the United States and therefore resides with the States and the People.

You have confused the "Articles of Confederation" of 1771 with the "Constitution". The Constitution doesn't even contain the word "perpetual".

Amendment 10 says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." and, since the right to prevent secession is not enumerated as a power delegated to the United States by the Constitution (and in fact, was explicitly retained by the constitutions of several states), the right of the South to secede is perfectly legitimate.

By the way, the people also have the right to keep and bear any arms they like as the power to restrict that right was not delegated to the United States and therefore resides with the States and the People.

You have confused the "Articles of Confederation" of 1771 with the "Constitution". The Constitution doesn't even contain the word "perpetual".

Amendment 10 says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." and, since the right to prevent secession is not enumerated as a power delegated to the United States by the Constitution (and in fact, was explicitly retained by the constitutions of several states), the right of the South to secede is perfectly legitimate.

By the way, the people also have the right to keep and bear any arms they like as the power to restrict that right was not delegated to the United States and therefore resides with the States and the People.

Barring whether or not one theory is any better than another, the separation of church and state is not a law, and it is not something that can be sued over.

The only reference to the separation of church and state comes from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802.

The letter merely tries to imply that the national government should not "do anything that might be misconstrued as the establishment of religion" (http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html). The mere existence of a competing theory does not constitute "the establishment of religion", even if it was a law someplace.

So, until more information becomes available to me, it seems inconceivable that anybody or any organization could have the grounds for suing a state-run school when it merely brings two competing theories to the table. The issue of competing theories is in a different post.

Since there are some people who don't/can't drive, should we privatize all the roads?

Article I - The Legislative Branch,
Section 8 - Powers of Congress,...
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

should the CDC stop researching the responsible pathogens?

This is a tough one for me, I'm not sure if the CDC&P and the NIH should be privatized or not but I will say things need to be changed, for instance the NIC, National Institute for Cancer spent millions of dollars to develop Taxol a drug for the treatment of certain cancers from the Pacific Yew tree. The NIH "sold" the rights to the use of the data from clinical trials to Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) for $5 million dollar worth of Taxol. BMS paid $.25 per milligram to the original manfacturer but were able to reduce the cost of production. However they charge $6 per milligram, a markup of 2,300 percent and a compleat treatment of Taxol may cost more than $50,000. In 1996 BMS made more than $800 million, and in 1997 analysts predicted sales of more than $1 billion from Taxol. I'd say American taxpayers got ripped off.

Not everyone goes to church or uses their public library... should the government stop giving tax breaks to churches and stop funding public libraries?

Churchs are tax exempt because to tax them would be taxation without representation, afterall it's unconstitutional to have a religious qualification test for public office. While I don't believe they should be taxed, I also don't believe they should get taxpayer money, which they are with Bush.

Income taxes began during the civil war which lasted until 1895 when the Supreme court found income taxes were "unconstitutional." To fix that, in 1913 the 16th ammendment was ratified.

I'm serious.

Point out an Article and Section. I implore you to do so.

• If you're asking me to present you with a part of the constitution itself that says there are checks and balances I can't, but then you're being intentionally pedantic. The constitution does not say "oh yeah, these are the checks and balances" but instead lays out the powers of each branch. These powers all have checks and balances built in because other branches can affect them, or overrule them. Some examples that also includes things beyond just the judiciary:

• • The House of Representatives (legislative branch) has the power to impeach the president/vice president as well as judges. (executive branch & judicial branch)
  • The Senate (legislative branch) has the power to try these impeachments (executive and judicial branchs)
  • The Senate approves appointments of federal judges
  • Bills must be passed by both the House and Senate (self-checking because of the dual houses of the legislative branch)
  • The President can veto bills
  • The President appoints judges
  • The President can do recess appointments (this is a check & balance against the legislative branch, rarely used although Bush did use this recently)
  • The President can pardon people (check against the judiciary)
  • Can call emergency sessions of congress
  • Judicial branch reviews laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the President
  • Chief justice sits as president of the Senate during impeachment trials

  If you want to read more, try here, that page has a more comprehensive list of the checks and balances the constiution sets up.

  Also this page has information on what the framers of our constitution were trying to accomplish. They constitution is intentionally vague and sets up an inefficient set of branches. The intention was to make sure that no branch could gain too much power and take control of the country. Remember that this was framed after we rebelled against being subjects of a king hundreds of miles away on another continent who was making us pay taxes without us having any say in them. Our founding fathers feared and hated this and intentionally set up our government to prevent it from ever occurring here. Whether or not they succeeded is up for argument, but that was their intentions.

I'm serious.

Point out an Article and Section. I implore you to do so.

• If you're asking me to present you with a part of the constitution itself that says there are checks and balances I can't, but then you're being intentionally pedantic. The constitution does not say "oh yeah, these are the checks and balances" but instead lays out the powers of each branch. These powers all have checks and balances built in because other branches can affect them, or overrule them. Some examples that also includes things beyond just the judiciary:

• • The House of Representatives (legislative branch) has the power to impeach the president/vice president as well as judges. (executive branch & judicial branch)
  • The Senate (legislative branch) has the power to try these impeachments (executive and judicial branchs)
  • The Senate approves appointments of federal judges
  • Bills must be passed by both the House and Senate (self-checking because of the dual houses of the legislative branch)
  • The President can veto bills
  • The President appoints judges
  • The President can do recess appointments (this is a check & balance against the legislative branch, rarely used although Bush did use this recently)
  • The President can pardon people (check against the judiciary)
  • Can call emergency sessions of congress
  • Judicial branch reviews laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the President
  • Chief justice sits as president of the Senate during impeachment trials

  If you want to read more, try here, that page has a more comprehensive list of the checks and balances the constiution sets up.

  Also this page has information on what the framers of our constitution were trying to accomplish. They constitution is intentionally vague and sets up an inefficient set of branches. The intention was to make sure that no branch could gain too much power and take control of the country. Remember that this was framed after we rebelled against being subjects of a king hundreds of miles away on another continent who was making us pay taxes without us having any say in them. Our founding fathers feared and hated this and intentionally set up our government to prevent it from ever occurring here. Whether or not they succeeded is up for argument, but that was their intentions.

Try reading the Constitution yourself.

The U.S. Constitution says nothing about copyright. The string "copy" doesn't appear once, the word "work" only shows up about not compelling a type of labor by traitors, and "publish" is only used to require the legislators and treasury to publicize proceedings and financial statements.

Copyright in the U.S. is defined by the legal code, not the Constitution.

...granting them an illegal end run around the constitutional limits of copyright terms.

What "constitutional limits?" Copyright in the U.S. is defined by the legal code, not the U.S. Constitution. Search the text of the constitution and the amendments for yourself. The word "copy" doesn't even show up once.

When will we ever start imposing term limits?

1951?

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The FCC is provided certain authority to exercise controls over broadcast and telecommunications media.

Where did the FCC derive such authority? Please trace this lineage from the constitution as I haven't read it.

Article I. - The Legislative Branch
Section 8 - Powers of Congress
... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

That is where some say the constitution gives the federal government the power over radio waves. It seems to me though that the FCC abridges the First Amendment Freedom of Speech.

Constitution: Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; ...

vs.

Judge: Kleinberg ... ruled that no one has the right to publish trade secrets that only could have been provided by someone breaking the law.

How can a law that overrides the freedom of speech be constitutional? If a whistle blower discloses embarrassing/incriminating "trade secrets" will the press / people be denied their constitutional freedom of speech to disclose the information?

Actually, it *is* a Constitutional issue. See The Ninth and The Tenth Amendments.

Simply put, the Ninth says, "Even if we didn't mention them, you still have all your rights". The Tenth says, "If we didn't talk about it here, the Feds have no power to do it."

Actually, it *is* a Constitutional issue. See The Ninth and The Tenth Amendments.

Simply put, the Ninth says, "Even if we didn't mention them, you still have all your rights". The Tenth says, "If we didn't talk about it here, the Feds have no power to do it."

*The federal drinking age is not actualy a mandatory law. Rather the federal drinking age is a condition of recieving federal money for highway and road matenence in the state. A state could have a lower drinking age. Most chose not to.

This is why the federal government couldn't collect income tax as an indirect tax, as decided by the courts, from its citizens.

It is a state's rights issue and the feds shouldn't be involved. The fact that money=power has turned our form of government upside-down because of this.

The conclusion is to abolsh the IRS with the FairTax legislation and then take the next step to begin to starve the beast...then we the people can get our power back.

You are so incredibly ignorant as to boggle the mind. Eminent domain existed in the Constitution of the United States long before railroad companies existed.

Amendment V - Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings. Ratified 12/15/1791.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Check out the US Constitution online and learn some history, and please do this before you even think about voting again.

The U.S. could quite easily pass a law making private ownership of foreign currency illegal.

That wouldn't be "easy", as it would require passing a Constitutional Amendment to revoke the existing Fifth Amendment. So USA citizens enjoy that right exactly as strongly as the do any other right.

If the government comes to your house with their guns and goons to take it, exactly who would you turn to to rein them in?

The Constitution?

Again, Google is our friend. This phrase was originally written by Thomas Jefferson, in a letter(full text in that link). It was referring to the clause you mention to try to describe what that meant. So, to sum it up, that phrase was written down by one of our "forefathers" as a commentary on it, but was not, technically, in the Constitution.

You're right. I don't often get to say that on this forum! That phrase comes from Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut. The confusion between semi-private letter and constitution seems to have first become official in 1947, in the case Everson v. Board of Education, where the Supreme court followed the grand old tradition of Dred Scott and screwed things up royally.

Umm, no.

They ARE Amendments.

There is NO "preamble" to the Bill of Rights.

Your quote sounds like something from a history book, but it is NOT part of the Constitution, though the reasons it gives for the Bill of Rights is substantially correct.

A more useful link is this which contains an annotated copy of the Constitution.

Intellectual property laws exist for reasons, one of which is that it may be costly to initially develop, but cheap to manufacture.

Read the US constitution.

t would be accurate to say our country was founded on money and God which is why we have on our cash "In God We Trust".

It certainly wasn't founded on any god, which explains why the word "god" doesn't appear in the Constitution. The Treaty of Tripoli further clarifies the issue with regards to the christian religion in article 11, which begins "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,..."

I wish sometimes that we were founded on religious ideals rather than ideology.

Which religion? I certainly wouldn't tolerate living in a country based on any of the Abrahamic religions. Buddhism might be nice.

There are those who believe they should this day wish a Mary Christmas to all *good* people rather than all people.

For their own definition of "good", I'm sure. How nice.

When the "right to share files" is enshrined in a constitional amendment,

The Ninth Amendment.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Also the First. Code is speech.

Two things. First and foremost constitutionally protected privacy does not exist (I assume we are both talking about The US Constitution which is the only one relevant in this context.) See, for example, Things that are not in the U.S. Constitution. It is easy to understand why if to keep in mind that Constitution formalizes relationships between the US Citizens and The US Government.

Privacy is not a citizen's right it is 'a basic human right' and thus should be protected regardless whether you are a US Citizen or not. Consequently, much better place for it is in a law, not in The Constitution.

Second thing is, whether corporations are legally persons? Short answer is 'Yes' for about 116 years. AFAIK it is called 'Equal Protection Right'. You can find some legal view point here. Look for "Are Corporations Legally Persons?" about 3/5 down the page (and subsequent link.)

You need to do some research. Start with the U.S. Constitution, section eight, paragraph eight:

[Congress shall have the power] "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

See that "limited time" up there? "Property" rights are not thus limited, real property is for ever, as a matter of law. Whatever these limited rights are, they aren't property by definition.

And to quote a paper found online in under two minutes:

One of Jefferson's most famous statements on patent law was in his often-quoted letter of August 13, 1813 to Isaac McPherson, in which he wrote that, since there is no natural right to property in land, how much less is there a natural right to a property in ideas. I think Jefferson's words apply equally well to copyrights as to patents; to "expression" as well as to "ideas": "he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."

See that "receives light without darkening me", Jefferson understood. The legal phrase is "non rivalrous goods". If I can not deprive you of a thing, I can not commit "theft". Look it up.

Do I take it that Thomas Jefferson was a socialist and beneath your contempt on maters relating to the U.S. Constitution?

They're called books, laws, and legal opinions. You should read some before you start publicly voicing your opinion. You'll look smarter... 8-)

The constitution already defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

That is completely untrue. Go ahead and search the Constitution for "marriage", "marry", or even just "marr". It's not in there.

Maybe you meant "dictionary" instead of "constitution"? But that doesn't have much legal weight, because laws often use definitions of words different from what they really mean.

Similar to the amendment process, you need both halves, but I, personally, would not say the "President makes laws."

According to the constitution, you do not need both halves for an amendment. It can be done without Congress. That is the point people are making. The Congress can not pass a law without the President signing or vetoing it (ie, he has to be a part of the process), but the states can skip the Congress entirely (although despite what others have said, this has never happened successfully, at least I think others said it happened, but according to this it never has). Therefore, by your reasoning (you need both halves, therefore the Congress can amend the constitution) the President makes laws. This was the source of my original frustration. I completely agree with you, we are mostly arguing semantics here since Congress has drafted every amendment, but your statement I believe continues to be false in the strictest sense. (For what it's worth, I would typically just leave this be, but I decided to jump in for kicks. Hope you don't mind too much.) If you want to continue to hold to your position, I can understand why, but will have to respectfully disagree since the states have far more say in the amendment process than Congress (in my (sadly) not very humble opinion).

You may not like the Electoral college but it is the law of the land ( US Constitution Article II Section 1). It has worked for over 200 years.

I believe that the vote trading is although not illegal it has a "wrong" feel to it.

If someone truly feels that they would prefer a particular candidate then just vote for them. Don't be such a wimp that you will not stand by your own convictions unless someone holds your hand and says it is ok.

Because of The Articles of Confederation Agreed to by Congress November 15, 1777; ratified and in force, March 1, 1781 makes our system of government is a Federated Republic with a Democratic system of checks and balances.

Not quite a Democratic Republic, not quite a Confederated Republic and not quite the Federation our founding fathers wanted.

I'm am constantly amused by my fellow Americans who seem to think we have some guarantee to 'privacy'. In fact, we do not. We have a constitutional guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure but that is as close as we get to a legal guarantee of 'privacy'.

Don't believe me? Read the Constitution of the United States again (or as I suspect is the case for more than few of you - read it for the first time!). http://www.usconstitution.net/

The word 'privacy' appears exactly 0 times in that venerable document. The only reason the police can't enter your home simply because they feel like it is because the 4th Amendment protects you from "unreasonable search and seizure". It has nothing to do with privacy as a whole in society. Once you are in a public place your every action can be observed and recorded by anyone who wishes to do so and there is nothing illegal about it.

Privacy is not a Right. Never has been. If privacy were a right then you could not have probable cause - after all you would have a reasonable expectation of prvacy in every situation and for an officer to even look through your window would be a violation of that right. If privacy were a right there would be no paparazzi. There would be no sobriety checkpoints. There would be no security in airports, concerts, or anywhere else. Any activity that required you to provide some piece of information about yourself would be outlawed as all of these are violations of your 'privacy'.

Yes, cameras in Chicago will reduce your privacy - no doubt about that...but then again you never really had a right to it in the first place. Of course, we could just ask our London based colleagues what life under CCTV is like - last I saw the average Londoner was supposedly photographed 300 times a day. Any of you Londoners having a problem with big brother breathing down your neck? Or maybe, just maybe, have those cameras have had an actual impact on crime and safety in your lovely city?

The Constitution begs to differ.

All I have to say is, if Bush gets re-elected, I better not read one fucking word about repealing the 22nd amendment.

If we dropped some of the stigma around the Constitution, it could be _changed_ and actually be a living document that helps the US develop into the future.

Furthermore, it's not the "the Constitution from 225 years ago". The Amendments from 1804 (12th, electoral college), 1865-1870 (13th-15th ending slavery and granting equal protection), 1913 (16th, allowing income tax), and 1920 (19th, women's right to vote) were all quite deep rooted changes-- the 1860's ones altering almost the fundamental character of the constuitution. When an issue creates sufficient public awareness that there may be a fundamental flaw in the basic working principles represented by the constitution, someone invariably suggests we amend it. It's probably a good thing this usually just results in brief sound and fury as with the 1920's child labor amendment (legislation largely fixed it) and the 1970's ERA (regarded by many as redundant due to the Article 14 "persons" equality), and often does not even get so far as going to the states for ratification, given some of the stupid things that people want enshrined in the constitution, I'm just as glad.

When we're fairly sure a change will be an improvement, we change it (although we've been wrong before). If we're not sure it's broke, we don't try to fix it. It's not a perfect system, but it's not bad.

"Caution is the eldest child of wisdom." --Victor Hugo.

> We license driving, marriage, fishing, hunting, etc...

Just because everyone else thinks they need to get one, doesn't mean you need to as well.

There are numerous people who excercise their right to travel without state permits. (Myself included, I've never been given a ticket for driving without a license. It *is* possible, if you know how.)

You don't need a marriage license to be married. What do you think a Common-Law Marriage is?!

You'll want to see Things that are NOT in the Constituion.

Which means, that ...

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." (Bill of Rights - Amendment X)

Peace
--
"Geometry is frozen music"
- Pythagoras

• (C) If the person engaging in the conduct thereby intentionally kills or attempts to kill the unborn child, that person shall instead of being punished under subparagraph (A), be punished as provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113 of this title for intentionally killing or attempting to kill a human being.

• If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the
• (14th) Amendment.

You've left out an important part of the 4th amendment. Here's the amendment in its entirety:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Now, if you look at the actual text of the PATRIOT Act, and go down to:

SEC. 501. ACCESS TO CERTAIN BUSINESS RECORDS FOR FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE AND INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM INVESTIGATIONS

It states that access to certain business records (which is what, eg, library records are) must be applied by a high ranking FBI official, and be approved by a judge. This appears to be due process to me. Also, Section 502 calls for semi-annual congressional reviews. So you've got both other branches providing oversight of the executive branch.

I'm at least as interested in civil liberties as anyone else around here, but inflamatory arguments about things like the PATRIOT Act that disregard what the act actually says don't do any good for anyone.

If it weren't for the fact that attitudes like yours have consequences your post would be rather funny. Before we begin, I should point out that I'm Canadian and we have rather than our American friends to the south. In our case it is simply a matter of the popularity of the law because we have no right to bear arms in our consitution. Therefore our duly elected government may enact any law on the subject.

Like it or not the US is a different case. Your constitution states very clearly that Americans have the right to bear arms. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.". There are two statements in that sentence. The first seems descriptive to me, but the second is clearly prescriptive. More importantly, US rights are given to individuals, not to groups.

The fact is that the US constitution guarantees no infringement of the right to bear arms. If you don't like that, there is a clear solution: replace or eliminate the second amendment. I really see no problem with this. The US constitution is not a secular bible. It can be changed. It even has a mechanism for that. So use that mechanism!

Unfortunately, several anti-gun groups aren't willing to undertake this admittedly daunting task and are instead trying to pretend that the second amendment doesn't in fact say what it clearly does. If you go down that route you go down the unfortunate path of making up the law as you go along. If you get the Supreme Court to go along with you, you end up in the undemocratic world of judicial activism and making up law as you go along.

I believe in democracy and free speech. Judicial activism is to say the least very unhealthy in a democracy. The best example I can think of comes from Canada. Most of our controversial judicial cases these days spring from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A few years back, (sorry I couldn't find the date), our court decided to add "sexual orientation" as a prohibited grounds of discrimination. (Section 15). If you read section 15 in the charter, the document clearly does not prohibit descrimination on those grounds. Perhaps it should. Perhaps it should not. That's not the point. The point is that the supreme court is not the procedure laid out to revise the charter. The supreme court's job is to interpret the charter. That does not mean that the court can "read-in" things that simply aren't there at all, even if they "should" be there. (Our court is appointed by the Prime Minister, but even if it were elected, that wouldn't make it the proper channel to revise the charter). If the supreme court can't even follow the laws of democracy in place in our country, we don't have a truly democratic country any more. That's bad news for everyone, but I find that increasingly large numbers of people don't care about democratic solutions as long as their interests get promoted.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

The Ninth Amendment says that other rights are there, just not specifically enumerated.

The right to privacy, while not explicitly enumerated by the US Constitution, has at least been granted by the Supreme Court in decisions over the years. Specifically, it is protected by the 9th Amendment.

For further information, go check out the privacy section at the US Constitution Online website.

The right to privacy, while not explicitly enumerated by the US Constitution, has at least been granted by the Supreme Court in decisions over the years. Specifically, it is protected by the 9th Amendment.

For further information, go check out the privacy section at the US Constitution Online website.

If something SHOULD be a Right, but its not in the Constitution, its not a Right.

Read the 10th Amendment and say that again. Here, I'll help you

Which sub-branch of the executive body a particular government organization is under is really only an artifact of what sounded like a good fit at the time it was created.

I'd guess the problem here is that someone feels that the FBI is too full of bureaucracy and politics to do an effective job.

Raise your hand if you don't think the biggest problem with our government is the massive inert body of career bureaucrats. But you'd better be prepared with an answer in case you're called on.

And to all you free thinkers out there, that's not the problem, and if it were, there's already a solution

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Try http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop.html